“Mad Men” season 2

Darker and more mysterious, season 2 of the phenomenally rich “Mad Men” is hitting new notes while carrying the familiar story elements forward.

Sunday’s episode 3 might have been subtitled “Girls and Their Horses” –one of many great lines from the most shocking hour so far. Did you make the connection when Betty tugged on the reins

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to show her would-be suitor how to handle the horse at the stables and, later, when Don dominated the wife of the insult comic by yanking her mane? The hour was about who controls whom, how forcefully: the client and the advertiser, the advertiser and the actor, the actor and his wife, the mid-level managers and the bosses, the bosses and their secretaries. The lies and the liars.

It’s not about “covering,” Don tells his secretary, it’s about “managing expectations.”

Series creator Matt Weiner is doing a fine job of managing our expectations, confounding us when we think we see where he’s headed.

It used to be high praise to call novel-like television “Dickensian,” as many of us did with “Deadwood,” “The Sopranos” and “The Wire.” And network shows like “Once and Again,” “My So-Called Life” and “Homicide.” Here, the novelistic approach is more existential; it has less to do with colorful quirky characters and more to do with their internal terrain. Think less Dickens, more American cinema. Maybe Scorsese. Okay, laugh at the pretention, but take an hour off from the Olympics and watch “Mad Men”!

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.